Our human thought patterns are usually firmly entrenched by adulthood. We easily slip into them when we feel uncertain, threatened, challenged, or belittled by a person or an event. Our mind sets up thoughts that orbit around the person or event that aroused these unsettling feelings. We begin stroking our ego with ideas and fantasies that restore our sense of control. We search desperately for a place of calm to ease the tumbling thoughts within us. We take little notice and care little whether our conclusions are true or false.
We must realize that these erratic thoughts are evil. Through them we bear false witness, slander, murder, criticize, falsely accuse, or judge -- all things Christians are commanded to avoid. We set in motion a pattern of thinking in which we emerge as the person who is right regardless of the true circumstances. It is this pattern of unjust thinking that we must intercept and destroy.
The world today is very concerned about kicking the habits -- drinking, smoking, over-eating, or drugs. But is not wrong thinking at the base of each of these problems? For the Christian and non-Christian alike, faulty thinking is a dangerous pastime.
Scripture states that we as Christians are to have the mind of Christ. Tozer defines this as "thinking God's thoughts after Him. The mental stuff of the Christian can be and must be modified and conditioned by the Spirit of Christ which indwells his nature. The Spirit-filled, prayerful, obedient Christian can actually possess the mind of Jesus so that his reactions to the world are the same as Christ's." Is this true of you? Whose thoughts do you think?
What can we do to have the mind of Jesus? Wait for it to descend from above? Make up our own minds and then hope that Christ feels the same way we do? No way! I would like to suggest some steps to follow: